Friday, November 01, 2013

I'm never happier than when I am creating and making --

And, although I am not currently hands-deep in the creation of a project, I am on a bit of a creative high from just seeing (and handling, and manipulating) THE Salzburg Marionettes. Yes . . .

These Marionettes

(I get to watch the performance of the Sound of Music itself, tomorrow :) exciting!)

Anyway -- what an experience. To see the masterful carvings, the detail in the hand-tooled leather shoes, the perfectly suited and painstakingly created costuming. True, true artists, the lot of them.And even more than that -- the stringing of the puppets to their controllers! If a picture is worth a thousand words, the seeing and handling in person is worth ten times that. I am grateful to BYU for the opportunity. They arranged to have the wonderful Philippe take our small group through the process of what belonging to the Salzburg Troupe entails as well as answering all our myriad of questions on the making and manipulating of the marionettes.Then, we were allowed to touch, examine, and even work them. What an opportunity. Seriously a once in a lifetime event--at least from where I stand.

I was even personally shown the ins and outs of manipulation by Heide, who has been a part of the troupe for over 50 years.I was even (yes, it's a big deal to have been given the opportunity!!) allowed to film Heide's and Edouard's artful mastery of the marionette controller. Unfortunately, what I can post will not begin to compare to seeing it in the real. But at least you'll get the idea.

Do watch for the Dressing the Naked Hand's version of a marionette controller, along with the details of string placement for a more life-like manipulation.

Not that I'm the expert, I just write for the experts ;)

I believe this is Edouard doing the handwork

Here are a few of us testing it out and learning by doing :)

All in all, it was good to know that what we've got in the book is not far off from what this famous troupe has been doing for over 100 years. Salzburg Troupe Links to check them out even more